UK targets Putin’s ‘shadow fleet’ with fresh sanctions

LONDON — The U.K. is imposing fresh sanctions on 30 oil tankers from Russia’s so-called shadow fleet as it tries to squeeze Vladimir Putin’s funding of the war of Ukraine.

Billed as the largest British package of its kind, the U.K. government said it hoped the move would clear shipping lanes of unsafe traffic and curb “malign behavior” that has seen Russian ships continue to haul millions of barrels of crude oil and petroleum products around the world for sale in spite of Western sanctions.

The announcement came as Foreign Secretary David Lammy used a G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Italy to urge allies to maintain pressure on the Kremlin.

“Russia’s oil revenues are fueling the fires of war and destruction in Ukraine,” Lammy said in a statement.

“I will work with our G7 partners and beyond to exert relentless pressure on the Kremlin, disrupt the flow of money into its war chest, erode its military machine, and constrain its malign behavior worldwide.”

The government said the ships were responsible for transporting billions of pounds worth of oil and oil products in the past year alone, posing “significant risks to global trade.”

The action brings the total number of Russian oil tankers sanctioned by the U.K. to 73, compared to 39 by the U.S. and 19 by the European Union.

Lammy told reporters at the G7: “We are determined to ensure that both the ships, the enablers of those ships thwarting European and U.K. sanctions, are hurt at this time and that we ensure that the attempts to circumvent the sanctions that we put in place previously and of course to avoid Russia using its oil revenues to continue to fund its war — that we bear down on those issues.”